How to Prove You’re Your Father’s Daughter at the Nurses’ Station
BIO
Sonya Lara is an Editor-at-Large for Cleaver Magazine, Managing Editor for The New River, and an MFA poetry candidate at Virginia Tech. In 2019, she was the Managing Editor for the minnesota review. She also served as the Associate Fiction Editor for The Madison Review at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she received her BA in English-Creative Writing. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Prairie Voices, Wisconsin’s Best Emerging Poets: An Anthology, Trestle Ties, Heavy Feather Review, ENTROPY, Homology Lit, AGNI, and The Los Angeles Review. For more information, visit sonyalara.com
Turn your head to the side
and brush the curvature of your nose,
how your grandma traced you
and your father’s profiles into the same line
during her visit from
Mexico. When the nurse plucks a single hair to count
your Mexican genes, do not
wince or yell out in Spanish,
let her examine the
smallest part of you as she takes her time
asking if you know the
number of his hospital room.
Offer to show her your
small palm, the room
between your wrinkles
sparse, how everyone knows
you’ve lived many lives
before this, that last time
God told you you should’ve
gone to Hell, the line
between debt and
forgiveness so thin priests in Spanish
tell you your good deeds in
this life do not count.
Stick out your tongue and
tilt your head back as she counts
your silver fillings to
determine your worth, the room
growing dark as your hold
your breath, Spanish
swear words drowned in
saliva, your nose
secretly inhaling air to
keep from passing out, the line
of her finger like a barrel
of a gun frozen in time.
Take off your coat and
wonder if he’ll remember you this time,
if you should remind him
it’s your birthday, if 25 counts
as a reason to celebrate,
if you can force a smile out of a broken line
of lips, if you can
persuade the nurse to let you go to his room,
if you can ignore her when
she says she knows, or think she knows,
that your lips have never
moved to speak Spanish.
Explain your mother’s
mistake, that your name is Spanish,
that the “y” was supposed
to be an “i”, how at the time
she was too tired to
remember, how your father knows
he should’ve been there,
how he can still count
the seconds he gripped the
steering wheel instead of your newborn hand, the room
in his garbage truck
swallowing him, his forehead etching another line.
Do not look the nurse in
the eyes as you think back to the preschool incident, the line
of your father having to
prove himself crossed, how his English and Spanish
vocabulary made the teacher
hand him the other little Mexican girl in the room,
how that little girl’s screams
that she didn’t know him slowed time,
the stares of other parents
labeling him a criminal, how your declaration of “daddy” didn’t count
until the teacher called
your mother to confirm, her odd smile an apology saying she now knows.
And when the nurse’s questions become too much, the room full of
people waiting in line
behind you staring, breathe out your nose and hum your favorite
song in Spanish
as your driver’s license rewinds time and makes your claim as your
father’s daughter count.